Sunday, one of our friends, Jackie, held a house warming party. This is a big tradition in Korea. Any time someone moves to a new apartment, they are socially obligated to throw several parties (for the husband's coworker, for the wive's coworkers, for the family, for the friends, etc.). Traditional presents for these parties are household goods like cleaning supplies or, my personal favorite, toilet paper. We brought Jackie a large 16 pack of TP.
We had a nice little potluck dinner and then went downstairs to the rec-room for her building. (She teaches and lives at Hoseo University.) We had a few games of doubles ping pong. Then, we got everyone to come down for round after glorious round of "Chinese ping pong." This is a game where everyone lines up around the ping pong table. Each person takes one hit and passes the paddle to the next person. If you miss or do something wrong, you're out. When it's finally down to two people, they hit the ball, put the paddle down, turn in a circle and pick up the paddle again to try to return the shot. This game has loads of running and laughing and cheering, and it's so random that lots of different people win, not just the same person over and over. It was definitely the highlight of the week.
Then, Emma and I took out a small rubber boat onto the pond near Jackie's house. That was fun, but it was a little difficult to paddle with (or against) Emma. All in all, it was a great day.
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